
I also really enjoyed the Penumbra series that came before it, but Amnesia felt like such a big step forward, such an improvement in overall quality. I enjoy a surprise jump-scare here and there, but I struggle to enjoy an incessant barrage of them making every step an anxiety-inducing moment. I have a limited patience for scary games. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time. This fear of the unknown allows the player to scare themselves, which is the greatest trick of all.Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives and PC miscellany. The scariest part of this moment is the fact that the player never gets to see what the creature actually looks like. In order to avoid making contact with it, the player must run to the boxes floating on the water and out speed the water monster. They soon come to the realization that a creature lurks within the depths of the water, only evident by the splashes it makes and the monstrous sounds that can be heard. One of the scariest moments of The Dark Descent, in fact, happens relatively early in the game.Īround 4 hours into the game, the player encounters a room filled with water and large wooded boxes.

Humans naturally have a fear of the unknown, so by making the monsters mysterious, the player's imagination is able to run wild, thinking of the most horrifying things imaginable. Enemies that the player will encounter are largely hidden within the shadows of the darkness, making their existence all the more terrifying. One of Amnesia's greatest strengths lie in the player's fear of the unknown. This unique gameplay mechanic paired with a terrifying world and monsters makes for one of the scariest horror experiences ever. Being around enemies (which are attracted to the player's source of light) will also result in lost sanity, so the player has to be extremely careful and strategic at all times. Losing all of his sanity will result in death, and so staying out of the darkness for extended periods of time is crucial to the player's survival. Being left in darkness will cause Daniel's sanity to lower, which negatively affects both his vision and health. The game is both thematically and visually very dark, with the darkness of the world being Daniel's biggest enemy of all.įurther, The title very cleverly introduces the Sanity Meter, which represents Daniel's current mental state. No other information is given to the player, as the main character suffers from amnesia.

In the game's opening moments, the player learns three facts: the character's name is Daniel, he is from London, and his sole task is to kill his master.
